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Warrior Saints, Warfare, and the Hagiography of Ælfric of Eynsham

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2016

Hugh Magennis*
Affiliation:
Queen's University Belfast

Extract

Among the saints celebrated by the major vernacular Anglo-Saxon hagiographer Ælfric of Eynsham, one interesting group that has not received much scholarly attention is his warrior saints. In his lives of these saints Ælfric the monk, who has abjured violence, proclaims the spiritual achievements of men who have been military leaders and of ordinary soldiers serving in the ranks. The most famous of Ælfric's soldiers, St. Martin, was an unwilling one, but others commended by him were not unhappy to embrace the military life, even indeed when serving under pagans. Warrior saints were a distinctive and popular class of saints in the earlier Christian Mediterranean world. In the writings of Ælfric, as in Anglo-Saxon hagiography generally, they are a small group, but they are a group that illustrates strikingly Ælfric's approach to writing about saints, and study of them helps to throw light on the work he intended vernacular hagiography to perform. Part of that work, as argued below, was to provide ideologically suitable spiritual heroes for the faithful. But how should the potentially problematic group of warrior saints be presented, whose lives combine sanctity and violence and whose exploits might have disconcerting associations with the world of secular heroism?

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 2001 by Fordham University 

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References

1 A recent notable study is the Ph.D. dissertation by Damon, John Edward, “Soldier Saints and Holy Warriors: Warfare and Sanctity in Anglo-Saxon England” (Ph.D. diss., University of Arizona, 1998), in which discussion is helpfully structured around the recurrent themes of the unwilling soldier, the saintly soldier, the rejection of warfare, and the bloodless victory. Though taking a different line from that followed in the present article, Damon includes interesting treatment of Ælfric and other material discussed below. See also Earl, James W., “Violence and Non-Violence in Anglo-Saxon England; Ælfric's ‘Passion of St. Edmund,’” Philological Quarterly 78 (1999): 125–49. I am grateful to Mary Clayton for her comments on an earlier draft of this article.Google Scholar

2 See Delehaye, Hippolyte, Les légendes grecques des saints militaires (Paris, 1909; repr. New York, 1975); Maguire, Henry, The Icons of Their Bodies: Saints and Their Images in Byzantium (Princeton, N.J., 1996).Google Scholar

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9 There is some evidence that the writer of the (generally faithful) Old English prose translation of Felix's Life (ed. Gonser, Paul, Das angelsächsische Prosa-Leben des heiligen Guthlac, Anglistische Forschungen, 27 [Heidelberg, 1909]; trans. Swanton, Michael, Anglo-Saxon Prose, 2d ed. [London, 1993], 88–113) was uncertain how to take this episode. This version adds the heroic-sounding detail that in taking up the military life Guthlac “wræc his æfϸancas on his feondum” (Gonser, 108, line 38) (“avenged his offences on his enemies,” or perhaps “wreaked his indignation on his enemies”), but omits Felix's reference to Guthlac's “glorious overthrow of his persecutors, foes and adversaries by frequent blows and devastations,” (ch. 18; trans. Colgrave, 81), declaring instead that Guthlac “ϸa ehtnysse begangende wæs,” (Gonser, 109, lines 45–46) (“engaged in hostile raids/persecutions”); and instead of saying that Guthlac used to return a third of the booty to its owners (remittebat, imperfect tense), it states that it was only after his predations that “all at once” (semninga) he decided to return the booty, having been “divinely admonished and instructed within” (“innan manod godcundlice and læred”) (Gonser, 108, lines 41–44).Google Scholar

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20 On problems concerning the chronology of Martin's time in the army, see Fontaine, Jacques, “Vérité et fiction dans la Chronologie de la Vita Martini,” Studia Anselmiana 46 (1961): 189–236; Fontaine believes Martin spent about a quarter of a century in the army; for the contrary position, see Stancliffe, Clare, St. Martin and His Biographer: History and Miracle in Sulpicius Severus (Oxford, 1983), 111–33.Google Scholar

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29 The Vercelli Homilies, 289.Google Scholar

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32 Lines 42–43; trans. Skeat, , Ælfric's Lives, 2:223. For the Christian connotations of ungewemmed , see Tkacz, Catherine Brown, “Christian Formulas in Old English: næs hyre wlite gewemmed and Its Implications,” Traditio 48 (1993): 31–61, esp. at 44–48.Google Scholar

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36 “The Good Shepherd and the Soldier of God,” 434.Google Scholar

37 Blickling, , 213; trans. Morris, , 212.Google Scholar

38 Blickling, , 211; trans. Morris, , 210.Google Scholar

39 Blickling, , 213; Vercelli: “he munuclif 7 git swiÐor lifde ϸonne sume gehadode men” (“he lived the life of a monk to an even greater extent than some ordained men”).Google Scholar

40 Gordon Whatley, E., “Lost in Translation: Omission of Episodes in Some Old English Prose Saints' Legends,” Anglo-Saxon England 26 (1997): 187208, at 205. On Ælfric's treatment of this episode, see Gaites, Judith, “Ælfric's Longer Life of St. Martin and Its Latin Sources: A Study in Narrative Technique,” Leeds Studies in English, n.s. 13 (1982): 23–41, at 26–27. Some points of comparison between Ælfric's version and the anonymous one have recently been discussed by Rosser, Susan, “Old English Prose Saints' Lives in the Twelfth Century: The Life of St. Martin in Bodley 343,” in Rewriting Old English in the Twelfth Century , ed. Swan, Mary and Treharne, Elaine M., Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England, 30 (Cambridge, 2000), 132–42.Google Scholar

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43 “Passio Sanctorum Machabeorum,” ed. and trans. Skeat, , Ælfric's Lives, 2:66125, lines 812–62; see also Ælfric's Letter to Sigeweard, “On the Old and New Testament,” in The Old English Version of the Heptateuch, Ælfric's Treatise on the Old and New Testament and His Preface to Genesis , ed. Crawford, S. J., EETS, OS, 160 (London, 1922), 15–75, lines 1207–20; his Latin Letter to Wulfstan (“2a”), ch. 14, ed. Fehr, Bernhard, in Die Hirtenbriefe Ælfrics in altenglischer und lateinischer Fassung, Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa, 9 (Hamburg, 1914), 222–27, at 225. On the three estates, see further Cross, J. E., “The Ethic of War in Old English,” in England before the Conquest: Studies in Primary Sources Presented to Dorothy Whitelock , ed. Clemoes, P. A. M. and Hughes, Kathleen (Cambridge, 1971), 269–82; Powell, Timothy E., “The ‘Three Orders’ of Society in Anglo-Saxon England,” Anglo-Saxon England 23 (1994): 103–22.Google Scholar

44 The others are “De Oratione Moysi,” ed. and trans. Skeat, , Ælfric's Lives, 1:282307, and “Sermo excerptus de Libro Regum,” ed. and trans. Skeat, , Ælfric's Lives, 1:384–413.Google Scholar

45 See Clayton, Mary, “Ælfric's Esther: A Speculum Reginae?” in Text and Gloss: Studies in Insular Learning and Literature Presented to Joseph Donovan Pheifer, ed. O'Briain, Helen Conrad, D'Arcy, Anne Marie, and Scattergood, John (Dublin, 1999), 87101.Google Scholar

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50 “First Latin Letter to Wulfstan” (“2”), ed. Fehr, , Die Hirtenbriefe Ælfrics, 3557, at 55–56; concerning St. Martin he writes, “Sanctus Martinus quoque dixit Iuliano, perfido imperatori: Christi enim sum miles; pugnare mihi non licet” (“Saint Martin also said to Julian, the treacherous emperor, ‘I am a soldier of Christ; I am not allowed to fight’”), ibid., 56 (see above, p. 33); see Cross, “The Ethic of War,” 280.Google Scholar

51 “Natale Sancti Oswaldi Regis et Martyris,” ed. and trans. Skeat, , Ælfric's Lives, 2:124–43.Google Scholar

52 This follows Bede's Ecclesiastical History, Book 3, ch. 12. See Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. and trans. Colgrave, Bertram and Mynors, R. A. B. (Oxford, 1969), 250–51.Google Scholar

53 Lines 158–61; trans. Skeat, , Ælfric's Lives, 2:135–37.Google Scholar

54 “Passio Sancti Eadmundi Regis et Martyris,” ed. and trans. Skeat, , Ælfric's Lives, 2: 314–35. For recent substantial literary analyses of Ælfric's version, see Benskin, Michael, “The Literary Structure of Ælfric's Life of King Edmund,” in Loyal Letters: Studies on Mediaeval Alliterative Poetry and Prose , ed. Houwen, L. A. J. R. and MacDonald, A. A. (Groningen, 1994), 1–27, and Earl, “Violence and Non-Violence” (see n. 1, above).Google Scholar

55 Cf. Ælfric's source, Abbo of Fleury, Passio Sancti Eadmundi Regis et Martyris , in Memorials of St Edmund's Abbey, ed. Arnold, Thomas, Rolls Series (London, 1890, 1892, 1896), 1:125: “nunquam relictae militiae probra sustinui, eo quod honestum mihi esset pro patria mori” (ch. 8) (“I have never endured the disgrace of fleeing from war, because it would have been honorable for me to die for my country”).Google Scholar

56 Lines 101–5; trans. Skeat, , Ælfric's Lives, 2:321–23. Cf. Abbo, , “Tune sanctus rex Eadmundus in palatio, ut membrum Christi, projectis armis capitur, et vinculis arctioribus arctatus constringitur, atque innocens sistitur ante impium ducem quasi Christus ante Pilatum praesidem, cupiens ejus sequi vestigia, qui pro nobis immolatus est hostia” (ch. 10) (“Then the holy Edmund was seized in his palace, as a member of Christ, having thrown down his weapons, and was bound with tight chains, and innocent as he was he stood before the wicked leader, like Christ before the governor Pilate, desiring to follow in the footsteps of him who was sacrificed as a victim for us”).Google Scholar

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58 For the printed edition, see Mombritius, Boninus, Sanctuarium seu Vitae Sanctorum, 2d ed. (Paris, 1910 [original ed. Milan, , 1480]), 2:459–76; see London, British Library MS Cotton Nero E. i, Part I, fols. 102r–14v (this is a manuscript of the Cotton-Corpus legendary).Google Scholar

59 In fact, for ac the text used by Ælfric probably had ac si, as in Cotton Nero E. i, Part I, fol. 102rb .Google Scholar

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61 “Passio Sancti Mauricii et Sociorum Eius,” ed. and trans. Skeat, , Ælfric's Lives, 2:158–69. Similar in some respects is St. Eustace, another Roman soldier saint whose life was translated into Old English prose, but not by Ælfric (though edited and translated by Skeat in Ælfric's Lives, 2:190–219). Eustace is a formidable general who converts to Christianity but does not reject the army as a result. Called upon when the empire has been invaded by barbarian tribes, the (secretly) Christian Eustace willingly goes back to war. He succeeds in repelling the invaders and then overruns their country and lays it waste, returning victorious with plunder and captives; the scar on Eustace's neck (line 268) is testimony to his experience of battle. For Eustace the warrior there is no contradiction between his Christian faith and his military profession. Later when he openly declares his Christianity to the pagan emperor he is arrested and martyred, but he himself had seen no problem in serving Rome as a highly effective soldier, nor is any such problem discerned in versions of his legend.Google Scholar

62 “Natale Sancti Georgii Martyris,” ed. and trans. Skeat, , Ælfric's Lives, 1:306–19. For a convenient account of Ælfric's source, see Hill, Joyce, “Ælfric, Gelasius, and St George,” Mediaevalia 11 (1985): 1–17. See MS Cotton Nero E. i, Part I, in which George does not figure as a soldier (fol. 204ra).Google Scholar

63 They are named in the Latin passio: see the standard edition, Acta Sanctorum, Martii t. II, ed. Henschenius, Godefridus and Papebrochius, Daniel, 3d ed. (Paris and Rome, 1865 [original ed. Antwerp, , 1668]), 1925; cf. the manuscript version corresponding most closely to Ælfric's Old English, in British Library, Cotton Nero E. i, Part I (fols. 165r–166v).Google Scholar

64 Lines 76–77; trans. Skeat, , Ælfric's Lives, 1:243.Google Scholar

65 Cotton Nero E. i, Part I, fol. 165va. The text printed in Acta Sanctorum shows variation in phrasing here (as throughout) but has the same essential meaning: “quosdam eorum occidimus, quosdam in fugam vertimus, et unus de nobis non est laesus a tanto populo,” ch. 1.4, 20B.Google Scholar

66 Lines 49–50; trans. Skeat, , Ælfric's Lives, 2:161.Google Scholar

67 Godden, , “Ælfric's Saints' Lives and the Problem of Miracles” (see n. 47, above), 8384; Godden refers to Ælfric's homily “In Ascensione Domini” in his first series of Catholic Homilies , ed. Clemoes, Peter, Ælfric's Catholic Homilies: The First Series. Text, SS, 17 (Oxford, 1997), 345–64, lines 152–93.Google Scholar

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70 Godden, , “Experiments in Genre” (see n. 10, above).Google Scholar

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75 Catherine Cubitt argues strongly for the local and popular origins of the cults of a significant group of Anglo-Saxon saints; see her article, “Sites and Sanctity: Revising the Cult of Murdered and Martyred Anglo-Saxon Royal Saints,” Early Medieval Europe 9 (2000): 5383.Google Scholar

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77 See the discussion of the Vercelli-Blickling-Junius life of St. Martin, above; see also my articles, “Contrasting Features in the Non-Ælfrician Lives in the Old English Lives of Saints,” Anglia 104 (1986): 316–48, and “St. Mary of Egypt and Ælfric: Unlikely Bedfellows in Cotton Julius E. vii?” in The Legend of Mary of Egypt in Medieval Insular Hagiography , ed. Poppe, Erich and Ross, Bianca (Dublin, 1996), 99–112.Google Scholar

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79 Godden, , “Experiments in Genre,” 280.Google Scholar

80 See, for example, Cross, , “The Ethic of War”; Godden, “Ælfric's Saints' Lives and the Problem of Miracles”; and Clayton, , “Ælfric's Esther.” Google Scholar